Birth of a Nation, the slavery drama whose path to awards season appeared to have been blocked by a rape case from its creator’s past, has screened to a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Everyone who has sweat and bled and cried for this film should be rewarded.
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Though he later expressed his deep sorrow when he learned that the victim had committed suicide there are rape survivors in this film and rape survivors who were planning on watching the film.
“This isn’t the Nate Parker story, this is the Nat Turner story”, Miller said.
Union brought it back to the movie and said, “It’s so important for people to see that you are not broken and you are not seen as damaged and you are not seen as less than or forsaken”.
It’s when Turner becomes an adult and is told by a master (Armie Hammer) to travel with him to other plantations to preach to fellow slaves to lift their spirits (as rumors have started of emancipation) that the movie finds its groove. This is a forum for the other people who are sitting on this stage.
“There’s no one person that makes a film”, Parker said.
But the newfound attention on Parker put a spotlight on a rape case from when he was a sophomore and wrestler at Penn State University. “If you’re a decent human being who wants to take part in a conversation at the very least about things that bug the crap out of you, this movie is for you as well, and I hope you don’t sit it out”. It seems that the distributor would have Parker step aside when promoting the film as he only serves as a reminder of the problems that exist for women today.
“Tremendous is not a big enough word”, Union said of the response to the op-ed among the film community.
“We should all look at this film in the sense that this was a person that stood against a system that was oppressing people”, he told the audience. Most may have rushed to the film just to see it crash and burn, but what unfolded before the audience was art infused with lightning, a passion project impossible to ignore. Parker said at the press conference that, while he can’t speak on behalf of Fox Searchlight’s publicity strategy, the speaking tour he planned to mount at colleges and churches will continue. What makes Turner, along with similar rebel leaders, such a crucial historical figure is that he proved that slaves weren’t mostly docile save for a few rogue agents, but instead primed for insurrection if only given the right push. Contemporary cinema does not operate in a vacuum, however, and The Birth of a Nation is shackled to the controversy that surrounds Parker.
“I think one of the handsome things we can all relate to Nate…. uh Nat…”, she stuttered during last night’s Q&A, “is that we’re all capable of evolution”. “I decided I was going to use my celebrity, my platform, to talk about the horrors of sexual violence”.
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The news conference ended with journalists still clambering to pose questions, so it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the publicity campaign unfolds ahead of the movie’s October 7 theatrical release. Now, according to Vulture, she recently responded to those who haven’t totally heard or understood what she had to say. I was given five minutes.
